Mortal
by krackensan
Summary: What was Duo like during training? Yaoi. 1x2
1. Chapter 1

Mortal

Warning:Male/male sex, graphic, language, angst, lemon, violence.  
Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.

Up To Snuff

1x2

The boy swung his legs idly, hands gripping the stool as he looked around him, eyes never still under the brim of his black hat. He was too young to know how to hide the 'dead' in his expression, the dangerous edge of a boy that had seen too much, too young. It gave off heat, that expression, an animal cornered and ready to bite. It was hard for the old man to look at this cast off bit of humanity, and recall that he had foiled his best security system.

"A proposition?" The boy repeated, his eyes finally settling on the old man and taking in his very odd appearance. "People use that word when they go into an ally and screw. I don't do that."

The old man chuckled. "People also use it when they want to do business, when they want to offer you something that you might want."

"Like I said..." The boy sneered. "Why don't you just say it plain, so I get it?"

The old man activated a vid screen. A nearly finished black gundam stood in it's bay covered in scaffolding. "How would you like to pilot her? That plain enough for you? Pass my tests, and go through my training course, and she's yours."

The boy snorted, disbelieving, but his purple eyes were suddenly alight with something other than the shadow of pain and bad memory as he looked at the gundam. "That doesn't look like a girl. That's a guy."

"It's a very deadly machine that no one's been able to pilot... yet," the old man told him. "If you succeed, you'll be the first."

The boy was looking at him again, too shrewd for his age. "What's your angle? That's a machine for killing people. Who do you want dead?"

The old man smiled tightly. "Our mutual enemy, of course, the forces that have been murdering us under the direction of tyrants."

The boy rubbed a hand down his long braid, as if it were a talisman. "I get to kill those bastards? As many as I want?" The fire in his eyes sent a chill down the old man's spine.

"You'll kill who you're ordered to kill," the old man corrected firmly, "but, I assure you, it will be enough to satisfy you."

Duo held out his hand, small and older looking than a boy's should be, a hand used to hard work and too many shortcomings. "Duo Maxwell," he said, as if they had just met on the street.

The old man smiled and took his hand, giving it a small, formal, shake. "You may call me Dr. G."

"I'm your man," Duo announced eagerly as he leaned to look at Deathscythe on the vid screen once more.

Man, not boy, but Dr. G doubted that he had ever been allowed to be a boy.

Dr. G sighed as he stood near the boy's hiding place. It seemed impossible that anyone could squeeze between and under the heavy machinery, but the boy had managed it. He doubted that the child was comfortable though. Coolant sprayed and pumped frantically to keep the old regen units from overheating. Still, they could make life quickly miserable in such an enclosed space.

"Report," Dr G ordered as he straightened and stuck old hands into his coat pockets.

The doctor was embarrassed, yet irritated at the same time. A tall, hatchet faced man, he looked more like a drill instructor than a skilled ship's medic. "I was giving him his medical exam, as per your orders. He accused me of molesting him, punched me in the jaw, and ran."

"Did you explain your procedures before you performed them?" Dr. G demanded in exasperation. "You were informed that he has little to no education. I doubt that he has even been in a charity clinic."

"That's a lie," an angry, young voice said over the loud drone of machinery. "Father Maxwell had all us orphans checked out and I did too go to school, so... shows how much you stinkin' know!"

Dr. G leaned down again and asked calmly. "Then why the panic, boy?"

"He tried to stick his finger where it don't belong!" Duo snarled back.

The doctor protested at once, in a fury, "It was a routine exam procedure! Don't you goddam dare accuse me of molesting you, L2-"

"That's enough!" Dr. G snapped, glaring at the doctor. When the doctor collected himself and throttled his temper, he asked, "How far did you get in the exam?"

The doctor raked fingers over his crew cut, as if it needed straightening, and replied, in a more professional tone, "He's half starved. I think he's been on his own since the massacre and not doing too well. His genetic markers tell me he was born in space, a test tube baby. He's been altered, definitely a Newtype, though I can't understand why someone abandoned him after going through the trouble and the expense to make him. His reflexes and bone structure are enhanced. Mentally, I give him a yellow light. He's twitchy." The doctor rubbed his aching jaw. "He reacted very negatively to pics of soldiers and seemed excited by explosions, fires, guns, and machinery. He also tested as a homosexual."

Dr. G blinked at that last. "Why would you test for that?"

The doctor looked exasperated, as if the answer were obvious. "To gage his level of mental stress and earlier trauma. You, sir, have on your hands an orphan who was abandoned on the streets of L2, lived through a plague that killed almost all of his street friends before his eyes, was taken in by a church orphanage, who then met an ugly fate at the hands of soldiers, and who is now a traumatized boy, being asked to climb into a death dealing machine and kill as many soldiers as he can."

"Who was also just molested by a sick fuck!" Duo shouted from his hiding place. As the doctor swore and turned red with anger, Duo suddenly asked, "What's a... whatever he said?"

"Homosexual?" Dr. G clarified uncomfortably.

"Yeah," Duo replied.

"You're too young for it to matter, boy," Dr. G retorted. "Please, get out of there, now, before the regen units fry you. They have a habit of arcing. I promise that the medic won't continue with his exam. I think we know enough about your physical and mental state."

The doctor said, in a lowered voice, "I'll have Jim and the crew take him down satellite."

"You will not," Dr. G told him with a glare.

The doctor was astonished. "But, I'm certifying that he's a basket case, a bomb ready to blow, a psycho just waiting to get the right weapon to slaughter wholesale."

Dr. G grunted. "He just lacks direction and a firm hand. I'll give him that."

"I wonder..." the doctor mused as he watched Duo slowly squeeze out of his hiding place.

"You do?" Dr. G prompted with a grim smile for the boy.

"When he'll kill you," the doctor finished with a shake of his head.

"Not today, right, boy? Today you'll refrain from taking vengeance on me and the good doctor." Dr. G chuckled, but Duo glared and avoided his helping hand.

"Keep your hands to yourself," Duo warned sullenly, "That's all I want."

"Is it?" Dr G wondered. "Then you disappoint me."

Duo cocked his head at him. "You use a lot of big words, that make you feel smart?"

"Show me that you're more intelligent," Dr. G replied. "That's what I require of you."

"Done that already," Duo snorted. "If that defense system was the best you had..."

"Little, arrogant...," the doctor began but then started when Dr. G suddenly acted as if he were going to backhand Duo.

Duo flinched to avoid it, but he didn't cower. His eyes turned to fire and his fists balled up. "Come on!" he taunted. "Just try it!"

Dr. G laughed outright. "You're perfect!" he said. "Brave, intelligent, and physically capable. Come with me." He began walking, both the doctor and Duo watching him in confusion. "I want you to meet your Gundam. You should know, intimately, what prize you're striving to attain."

Duo rolled eyes at the doctor. "He's crazy."

"So are you," the doctor replied irritably.

Duo surprised him with a grin of defiance and then he watched as Duo ran after Dr. G eagerly. Completely crazy, he thought.

Dr. G watched the boy pace the room. A bundle of nervous energy, eyes looking at every centimeter, it was obvious that he didn't like the inactivity. He would have to learn to endure it, though, learn not to break in long periods in space, trapped in the small confines of a cockpit. For now, though, he was being tested on his ability to think quickly.

A panel opened up and the air began to leave the room at a nod to a technician. Dr. G opened a mic and said calmly, "You have twenty five seconds to crack that panel, before I space you."

He cut the mic and watched as the boy jumped for the panel. His eyes, the way they flicked rapidly, was a sign of heightened brain activity. His fingers flew and then he ripped the panel out, found the lock chip, tossed it, and then made the jump in circuits by stripping a wire with his teeth and jamming it into a board. His fingers hit several keys just as the hatch alarm began to sound. It cut off abruptly.

A new alarm sounded, just behind Dr. G. He whirled as several technicians shouted in fear and surprise."Little bastard!" Dr. G growled as he bent to override his own system to keep his air lock closed. He made it, just.

Slumping into a chair, he hit the mic, and then realized that he and Duo were both panting and glaring in the same angry adrenaline rush. It bled his anger away. "Very good," he chuckled. "Monster."

"Sick fuck!" Duo snarled, but then barked a laugh in return. "Told you I was better than you."

"But I'm still alive," Dr, G pointed out. "Perhaps we're only well matched?"

"Keep telling yourself that," Duo huffed. "Now, let me outta here!"

"I shall... in a few days," Dr. G promised. "A little lesson not to bite the hand that feeds you." And it would start his training, he thought grimly. The boy was up to the challenge, at least mentally.

The boy had astounding reflexes, phenomenal stamina, and a mental steel that made him a perfect choice to be a weapon in the cause. Unfortunately, he was still a boy , and prone to uncertainties, and emotional upsets, that had to be factored into their plans. He wasn't a plug and use module, as much as Dr. G wished he were.

"He has an uncanny ability to figure out how things work," one of Duo's testers said as he checked over a chart of Duo's accomplishments. " He says, 'It makes sense this way.' or 'It's like two and two, making four.' You just know that it does."

"And his weapons skill level?" Dr. G asked as he watched through a protective glass partition as Duo hit target after target, flawlessly, in the simulator.

"Part of the same ability," the man replied. "His brain is telling him trajectory, speed, distance with the same high speed calculation. The boy's an idiot savant."

Dr. G frowned at the man. "Idiot? What makes you think that the boy is an idiot?"

The man grunted at his chart, as if it were obvious. "He's not had any real schooling. He's from the streets of L2. He hasn't shown any aptitude, or general knowledge, in any form of academics.This ability of his is purely genetic."

"So, the little shit has been playing dumb?" Dr. G snorted.

"Sir?" the man asked in confusion.

Dr. G shook his head as he watched the boy finish his set perfectly and then stand, staring towards every point but where, Dr. G was certain, he knew where the hidden cameras were. Dr. G could see him whistling and pointedly ignoring their 'spot' on the wall.

Dr. G opened the mic and said, "Good, but you need to do better. If the enemy captures you, they'll see through your little ruse. Acting stupid is fine, but not when it's unbelievably stupid."

Duo grinned. "I'm not trying to fool anyone," he replied. "It's better to make 'em crazy."

Dr. G chuckled.

The tester scowled and snarled angrily, "If he's been faking all of this time, then all of my data is false! I'll need to start again! Dr., please order this child to-"

"See?" Duo snickered. "Crazy."

"Don't ever let them figure you out," Dr. G guessed and Duo gave a firm nod.

"Or find your hiding place," Dr. G muttered a few days later, as he climbed through yet another series of equipment stacks, in the bowels of the ship, as he searched for Duo's sleeping place. It had not really been a surprise to find that the boy had been avoiding the adult crew. For a child raised on the streets, that would be a natural instinct. It wasn't something that Dr. G couldn't tolerate, though. The boy had to work with adults. While he might not trust them, he had to learn how to interact with them socially and as team members.

At last he found it, Duo's 'nest' and it didn't surprise him to find that it was guarded as well. He tripped a wire and things fell over and rattled. To forestall any flight on Duo's part, he quickly called out. "It's Dr. G!"

Duo swore and came out of his narrow hiding place between two industrial fuel mixers and Dr. G had to sigh at the boy's penchant for choosing the most dangerous places to hide. Dr. G could see purloined blankets and some ration packs stashed far to the back of his hiding place. There was also an air tank, a flashlight, and a weapon. It wasn't a normal sort of boy's hiding place.

"You have to sleep in the men's barracks," Dr. G ordered firmly.

Duo took up the gun and held it as if it made him feel more secure. "They keep laughing at me, calling me L2 punk."

"That's a part of life," Dr. G replied. "Get used to it."

"I am used to it," Duo snapped back, "But that usually leads to worse things."

"It won't, not here," Dr. G assured him as he helped Duo gather his things.

"How do you know?" Duo asked skeptically and seemed reluctant to leave the safety of his hiding place.

"I'll space anyone who touches you," Dr. G promised.

Duo gave him a long look and then said, "That's not a lie. "

"Did you expect me to lie?" Dr. G asked as he started Duo towards the lift.

"Yeah, of course," Duo replied. "That's what people do."

"They do," Dr. G agreed. "But not here."

"Okay," Duo looked at him intently, but then he shrugged and said, "I hope you don't think I'm going to really buy all of that crap, right? Trusting gets you dead."

Dr. G smiled. "Yes, it does, boy, yes it does..."

"Come on, kid," Riley grunted as he placed dishes of food into the center of the table. "We all eat here. We don't snitch and run. We sit and use a knife and fork."

Duo glared as he reluctantly left his protective stance by the doorway. He didn't get within reach, though. "I know how to eat," he retorted as he slowly sat down.

"Yeah?" The big man plunked a large spoon into reconstituted mashed potatoes and gave the boy a skeptical look. "We don't really care that much for table manners, but we're rough speaking. Don't take it all serious, okay? Stand your ground and everyone will learn to lay off."

"I know that too," Duo snorted as he turned his attention to the food. "I just want them to keep their hands to themselves and not beat me up for shits and giggles."

The cook put hands on hips, swinging his unlit cigar from one side of his mouth to the other, bushy eyebrows coming down in disapproval. "We don't got any perverts here, kid, that's a fact, and nobody's beating up a little kid as long as I'm around." He leaned towards Duo, though, and pointed a pudgy, scarred finger at him, "and I don't put up with little kids hurting my guys either, got that? You may have them idiots fooled, by I see murder in your eyes. You've done bad, real bad."

Duo snagged a bowl of re-hydrated meat and forked a mound onto his plate as he growled, "Dr. G isn't fooled. He knows."

"Hard to tell with him, but I s'ppose.." The man cocked his head at the sound of the men approaching. He eyed Duo again. "Mind what I said."

Duo shrugged, but he was tense. The men came in talking, laughing, and pulling off gear. Vac suits hit a pile by one wall, and gloves, and tool packs were slung along another one. The men looked rag tag, no set uniform, just individual style and a common purpose.

"Dumb ass, you left that conductor unit wide open," a man swore as he shoved the shoulder of another man. "I should space your dick for that."

"Perggy told me he had it!" The man complained as they sat down on the long benches at the table. Hands began snagging dishes of food at once.

"Did not, you fucker!" that man swore and lobbed a spoonful of potatoes at him. "Don't make dumb shit excuses. The G connector was shorted. The scanner was up to four in the red and there was enough noise on the green lines to make an open conductor go boom."He snorted. "May do it anyway. I still can't figure out what the damned problem is..."

Duo hunched into himself, concentrating on eating quickly. He felt dwarfed by the large men and the urge to run was strong. When one of them men leaned towards him and looked him up and down, his hand closed on his plastic knife, wondering which part of the man was vulnerable to a weapon as weak as that.

"Hey, pip squeak," the man snorted. "Must seem like paradise after a rat hole like L2."

Duo grinned and looked at the man, "Food's good, but the smell's pretty bad."

The man frowned and then laughed. "I think he's talking about you Dinkins!"

"Only because he didn't know it was you," A broad shouldered, dark skinned man chuckled back.

Duo laughed too, his grin getting wider, even though his head was tucked down, his eyes hidden by his bangs. "That conductor making sparks? Was it arcing?"

Dinkins lost his smile. "Yeah..." he replied slowly.

"Try putting a rad meter on it and splitting the Y energers," Duo suggested.

"For a fucking short?" Dinkins scoffed. "Go change your diaper, dipshit."

Duo shrugged and went back to his meal, but Perggy was frowning, thinking it over. "Your dipshit may be right," he finally admitted and Duo snickered.

Dinkins mouth hung open. "What?"

"It's possible," Perggy grunted and then motioned to Duo with his fork. "Pretty damned good, kid. Maybe I should stick you in Dinkins job?"

"He's training," another man said in an exaggerated tone of voice. "He's Dr. G's baby boy."

A squat man with a burn along his jaw, hunched over his food and spat out something caught between his teeth, "he's gonna be a Gundam pilot. He should get some respect for that. It's signing a death certificate, pure and simple."

Dinkins made a rude gesture. "He don't know that. He's just a kid."

The squat man eyed Duo. "You know, boy?"

"What's it matter?" Duo wondered as he grabbed a bowl of soy squares. "It'll be one hell of a ride."

They all looked at him as he grinned.

"You're seriously scary," Perggy grunted.

"Deranged," another muttered.

"Better than stinking," Duo snickered.

The man started to reach for him, snarling a foul word, but a ladle slammed into his head, bounced off, and clattered against a wall. He blinked stupidly as the cook pointed a warning finger at him. "He's a damn kid. All of you get that in your thick skulls, now."

They all stared and then went back to their meals, some of them looking amused, but a few looking annoyed. Duo noted them and then grinned at the cook. The man nodded, once, and then went back to his kitchen.

"He exceeded tolerance levels by two times," the doctor grunted as he smacked his clipboard down onto a table and sat down heavily. He motioned to it in exasperation. "Go ahead and read it. Your little protege almost turned into paste in the simulator. Internal bleeding, hairline fractures, burst blood vessels... we stressed, stressed specifically and at length, that he was to signal when he reached his limit."

Dr. G stared down at the small clip on the board, showing Duo strapped into the Gundam simulator, a fire in his purple eyes and laughter ringing through the mics, as he cut down one mobile suit after another. "Maybe he didn't reach it,"he suggested.

"He almost died!" The doctor retorted."The pain alone would have alerted him to that fact, but he ignored it. He's a lunatic! I've warned you, again and again!"

Dr. G turned the sound up higher. Duo was singing, some sort of hymn, through gritted teeth... something about the sword of righteousness falling on the wicked. The boy had not seemed overly religious during questioning. Dr. G doubted that he had suddenly become so now. There was significance to the hymn, some clue as to how the boy thought of himself.

"Look at his motor skills," Dr. G said as he pointed a boney finger at the screen. "Remarkable. Every synapse and muscle is working in perfect harmony. His spatial sense is also phenomenal. He barely looks at the positioning screen or the proximity alarms. He's already calculated where they are."

When blood started trickling from Duo's nose and the simulator turned off as technician's swarmed in, Dr. G turned off the board. "Has he come around yet?"

The doctor shook his head, no, as he stood and led the way into the infirmary. "Why ask for any of my reports?" he wondered acidly. "You're determined to use him in your project, no matter what I say."

"I've told you before, your reports give me insight," Dr. G replied as he moved to stand by a bed. He sighed in the next instant at the too obvious impression of a pillow jammed under blankets to look like a young boy sleeping. "He's gone."

"Of course," the doctor growled. "Like any animal, he feels vulnerable by wounds. He'll be hiding somewhere he thinks is safe, if he made it that far. He was hurt pretty badly."

"Hmm, then I expect that he's..." the Dr. looked under the bed and found Duo tucked up asleep in it's darkness. A viper in repose, he thought, and warned the doctor, "Don't try and move him. I'm certain he's armed and dangerous. When he wakes again, call me, and I'll try and reason with him."

"Reason?" the doctor scoffed.

Dr. G narrowed eyes at him. "You make a grave mistake, doctor, if you consider him unable to reason."

"I don't know where you draw that conclusion," the doctor shot back.

Dr. G pointed downward. "Someone who couldn't reason, would have fled and fallen in the halls outside. He reasoned that we would search everywhere, but where he was supposed to be."

"But you knew," the doctor replied, as if it proved something.

"Did you?" Dr. G grunted, eyebrow arching.

The doctor seethed. "I feel that I must ask to be removed from this project. I find it unethical and dangerous to my person and many others. I think you're making a very serious mistake."

"Is that what you want?" Dr.G wondered. "Then go. You'll be known as the doctor who walked out on history... if they even remember your existence."

"You'll be known as the man who let loose a butcher, I'm sure, when all is said and done," the doctor replied, looking aggrieved .

"History tells a different story, depending on who's lens you use to look at it," Dr. G told him as he tucked hands into his lab jacket."It's also a gamble, since we can't know outcomes for certain. I'm betting that boy has a conscience, somewhere under all of his hurt. I think, when the time comes, he'll make the right decisions when he's at the controls of his Gundam." The Dr. leaned in and squeezed the doctor's shoulder. "Perhaps you'll be the man to uncover that conscience, with your alarm and bluster over what, in his short experience, no one had much cared about; human life and the cost of taking it."

"As if he would listen!" the doctor scoffed.

Dr. G motioned to the bed. "He's awake and listening now. You're patient, doctor?"

The man frowned, ran fingers through his hair, and then looked despondent. "I have my own ethics,"he said. "If there's anything that I can do to change the course of this madness, then I must stay."

Dr. G nodded and smiled with a bit of triumph as he said loudly, "Mind him, Duo, and don't kill him, all right? He needs to make you well."

"He talks too damn much," Duo's weak voice complained.

TBC 


	2. Perfection

Kracken

Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.  
Warning:Violence, language, male/male sex, graphic.

Mortal

Perfection

"Stop!" Duo growled as two men shoved him back and forth between them.

"Maybe he cut a suit down for you, but that doesn't make you space worthy," Dinkins snarled back. "You're just what the doc said, killer street trash. We ain't workin' with you!"

The group of men filed into the air lock, tools slung onto shoulders, and left Duo staring at the wrong side of the air lock door as it closed. He fisted his hands in anger and then scrambled to retrieve the parts of his suit that they had cast to the four corners of the work bay.

An idiot didn't throw on a suit, that had just been manhandled, and go out into vacuum. Duo checked his seals and pressurized the suit for air leaks first. It took time, but his small fingers still did the job faster than anyone else. "Fuck you, nobody tells me what the hell to do!" Duo swore as he suited up at last and grabbed his own tools. Dr. G had named his price for getting Deathscythe. Duo was determined to pay it. If this outing was part of his training, then no one was going to stop him from completing it.

Born in space, Duo was accustomed to low gravity. Work in simulators had given him some idea how to move in zero gravity. He thought that he could cope. He wasn't prepared for the depressurization, the feel of the suit squeezing him from all sides, and the cold that seeped into his bones even with suit heat generators. When the hatch opened, he had a moment of claustrophobia, that warred with a dizzying panic, at suddenly being in space. He clutched at the ship's handholds, panting, and feeling utterly alone in his danger.

"I'm used to that," Duo finally said through gritted teeth, finding his courage long minutes later. His eyes glinted fiercely as he forced his hands to obey him, easing his death grip on the handholds. Yes, the universe was frightening in it's immensity. Yes, a person could let go and float for an eternity as a perfectly preserved corpse. Yes, a suit leak, at this stage, could make his end very messy. That was fucking life on the edge and that's the way he had always lived. Location meant nothing. The name of the game was still, 'do what had to be done, no matter what'.

"He's doing it," a technician told Dr. G.

Dr. G leaned to look at the display of vid pick ups. Duo was crawling along the metal hull to reach the men who were trying to repair an array of communication pods. He grunted, not surprised that Duo had passed yet another test. With every foot he managed, Dr, G saw him grow more and more confident in his movements. "Use that marvelous brain of yours, boy," he murmured. "Working in space is all about calculation, something that is your forte'."

"Go back, kid!" Perggy snarled as he spotted Duo. "We don't need a kid mucking everything up. This is dangerous business."

"I have my orders," Duo replied and he sounded... not angry. He sounded as if he were laughing, grinning, maybe, and enjoying the disruption he was making.

What's his game? Dr. G wondered, not having any doubt that it was one, and he began to feel a stir of trepidation. Cats liked to play with their food before they ate it. If Duo was thinking about violence, zero g was a place rife with murderous possibilities.

"Stay out of our way!" Perggy tried again. "We don't need you out here, no matter what G says."

"Afraid I'll fix it better than you?" Duo taunted as he continued to come closer. "I mean, look at the way you're hooking up that relay. You're going to blow it, if you aren't careful. That might be pretty, seeing you and your suit in itty bitty pieces, it'd be real shiny, but I'm thinking you'd rather not put on a show?"

"I've been fixing these things since before your mama opened her legs to the john who made you, little fuck, so don't you try and tell me-", Dinkins began snarling.

Perggy was eyeing the array though. "Why do you think it's gonna blow?" he wondered. A man with a healthy respect for his life, Dr. G thought.

"'Cuz that jump box you put in is failing," Duo pointed out, swinging down and starting to climb out onto the metal arm that held the pods. "You lazy bastards forgot to replace it after you used it for a patch. I can see the plastic oozing out of the seams from here. It's been burning. Soon as you put full power to the array, it'll overload and blow."

Perggy started towards it. "Hey, I think he's-"

"Shut the hell up and get back to work!"Dinkins shouted. "I put in that box myself. It's sound! If you're gonna pee your pants, maybe you should get the hell outta my way and I'll do the work myself!"

"I can do it!" Perggy growled, "So get the fuck outta MY way. You get back to momma G, kid, before I kick you all the way there."

"Your funeral," Duo told them as if it were all a joke. "I'll make sure they play nice music."

"Think you're so damned smart, don't you?" Dinkins shouted back. "Why don't you sit your ass here and watch how experts do it, kid? That'll teach you to keep your mouth the hell shut!"

"Experts, huh?" Duo shot back, "When are they showin' up?"

Dinkins swore, but Perggy was laughing even as he began working. Strapped to a hull, with the universe showing them how small and insignificant they were, and death at every hand, it was something that a kid could have enough courage to trade insults with them.

From his safe view point, Dr. G laughed with them as Duo joined the two men. Perggy began to explain what he was doing, while the rest of the crew scrambled to complete their own jobs.

"Where did he learn that, I wonder?" Dr. G said aloud as he marveled at the way Duo had wrapped the two men around his finger. Dinkins shouldn't have caved, shouldn't have started treating the boy like any other apprentice thrown his way, but he was, and somehow Duo had known how to 'speak his language', despite every indication that he was only infuriating the man. Between Perggy and Dinkins, Duo was given a first class crash course in communication pod arrays. He listened intently, did as he was told, but still returned to his earlier assertion as soon as Dinkins began to call in his crew to reconnect the power.

"It's gonna blow," Duo warned.

"Didn't we just teach you that we know better?" Dinkins snapped back, regaining some of his temper.

"At least make everyone back off first," Perggy suggested. "I think... Well, I can see some plastic oozing, just like the kid said..."

Dinkins glared at the box in question, grunted, and then ripped off the cover with an angry, violent move. His tether kept him from flying off into space, but he was jerked roughly. He hauled himself back in close, after slapping the cover onto a magnetic tool pad on his hip, and surveyed the insides.

"I need a new box, " Dinkins growled suddenly. "Get me another air tank and let's get to work, Perggy."

No thanks were ever going to pass the man's lips. Pride was stung. Duo was there, though, and pointing at a few connections. "That's good. How did you manage that?"

"Used the tip of my laser and connected it to the pulse k randomizer," Dinkins growled back sullenly.

"Show me," Duo asked, no demanded, Dr. G thought, his sponge like mind seeming to hate what he didn't know.

"Get outta my light and I will," Dinkins told him and he began to explain his jump to Duo.

Watching men, seeming to move in slow motion, for hours, was tedious, but Dr. G was interested in other things. Duo had proven that he could adapt, that he could deal with difficult personalities. He could also admit that there were things that he didn't know. Dr. G supposed that it had to do with survival on the streets of L2. Adaptability would have been key. Being able to talk a person into giving to a poor street child, or talking a person into not hurting that same child, would have been a survival skill as well. He imagined that Duo had probably excelled at those skills.

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Stay in the core!" Dr. G shouted to Duo. "It has the strongest bulkhead!"

Duo was wide eyed with alarm. Taking the small ship to test Duo's piloting skills, outside of a simulator, had seemed a safe trip. They hadn't expected a lone Oz scout to try and board them. Dr. G knew that he couldn't give away his own identity or that of his fledgling pilot. Any minimal print scan would raise questions that he wasn't ready to answer. Flight had seemed the best course, and opening their meager weapons on the unsuspecting craft. The nervous pilot had failed to score a hit, though, and now they were under a return barrage.

"You're fucking up!" Duo shouted at the pilot, as he used the backs of the seats to pull himself forward in the zero g. His long braid floated behind him as he gripped the pilot's jacket.

"Get off kid!" the pilot shouted back in a clear panic. "I'm trying to keep us from dying!"

"You're trying to kill us, is all I see!" Duo snarled back, purple eyes alight with desperation, "And I don't wanna die here! Let me pilot!"

"Like hell!" The pilot retorted.

Duo exchanged a look with Dr. G. "Let me pilot," he begged. "I know I'm better. You know I'm better."

"Stand down and turn off your engines!" the com unit blared, "or we will destroy your ship. We have an arrest order for one male adult traveling with one male child. The man is a known collaborator with terrorists." It was automated. Things had gone far beyond a simple request for a boarding and a search.

It was irritating that he had become tangled in another, fellow rebel's, business, Dr. G thought. He had warned the man, repeatedly, that none of them were ready to begin missions, but he had been adamant about the skills of his young protege. This was the end result. Somewhere, they had drawn the notice of Oz, and escaped. Dr. G and his crew were about to pay the price.

Duo was the better pilot, in a simulator. Allowing him to test under fire fight conditions was madness. Dr. G smiled and it was chilling and confident. "Pilot."

The pilot craned his neck around in shock, but met the slamming force of Dr. G's bony knuckles. Dr. G knocked the man out cold and then unstrapped him from the chair. Duo was crawling into the seat and strapping in before he even had the lax body of the pilot free.

Duo read the monitors quickly and then warned, "Strap in," as he banked the ship in a maneuver that Dr. G hadn't known that it could perform. The ship turned tail, and that was the only way to describe it. Calculating the thrust and control should have taken hours, or even days, not seconds. Any pilot would have claimed it impossible, but Duo had the ship facing their pursuers and firing all weapons before Dr. G could do more than grip the pilot tightly and find a handhold.

Space isn't like moving through air. Firing weapons, firing thrusters, and every motion of the ship took immense calculation to control. Dr. G could see Duo's lips moving, equations running from them like water without sound as his eyes flickered with rapid eye movement and his hands moved in perfect coordination with his hyper mind. The Oz ship never had a chance. It couldn't compensate to avoid the weapons, or the ship suddenly skimming over it's hull and taking out it's arrays. They left them dead in the water, as Duo opened up the engines and allowed a controlled over load to propel them out of range of the now, dead ship.

Duo was out of his seat then, as soon as he had the ship slowed and on autopilot, and he was spitting angry at the slowly recovering pilot. "You almost got me killed, fuck head!"

"Thank the boy for saving our lives," Dr. G suggested.

The pilot rubbed at his neck, looking stupid, and then he slurred, "Thanks..."

Duo scowled, sat cross legged on the back of the pilot's chair, his braid floating all around him, and confronted Dr. G. "You knew what that was all about. I could tell. Who's the kid? He my competition?"

It might have been advantageous to lie, to say that, yes, Duo had to prove himself to win his Deathscythe, or be replaced, but Duo had proven, without a doubt, his right to be in Deathscythe's pilot chair. When the boy could out think a ship's computer...

"He's part of another operation," Dr. G told him. "One that I think is going to fail. His instructor is using a far different method than mine to train him. I don't approve."

"How different?" Duo wanted to know, completely un-phased by the fact that he had nearly died.

"Let's just say, that I approve of your... humanity," Dr. G chuckled as he levered the pilot off of him and into a chair.

"Yeah?" Duo replied, puzzled, and rubbed the back of his neck. "What's that mean?"

"Maybe you'll find out one day," Dr. G told him. "Now, get us back home and show me that you know how to do something other than tear my ship apart on the way. You still have a pilot's test to pass."

"I think he passed it," the pilot said, looking awed.

"Dog fighting is a lot different from landing, taking off, and making certain that your cargo doesn't end up paste before the end of their journey," Dr. G snapped back. "Now, Duo, if you please. get back in the pilot seat and show me how to rotate the docking clips into position."

Duo snorted. "If you say so, doc, but those Ozzies aren't that stupid. They just might be looking for us."

"Not until they reach base," Dr. G assured him."That gives us time. Now, docking clips, please."

Duo rolled his eyes and began performing the simple procedures.

TBC

--------------------- Thanks for all the nice reviews, by the way. I appreciate them all, and you for reading. 


	3. Wind Up

Kracken

Disclaimer:I don't own them and I don't make any money off of them.  
Warning:Violence, language, male/male sex, graphic.

Mortal

Wind Up

"I hate you," Duo growled as he flexed his arms in the chair restraints.

"I do realize that," Dr. G chuckled as he eyed a line of carefully prepared syringes.

The doctor stood, arms crossed tightly over his chest and looking very disapproving.

"You have something to say, Doctor?" Dr. G wondered as he checked a readout on his laptop one last time.

"Genetic manipulation, on a minor, breaks more laws than I care to think about," the doctor pointed out. "The crudeness of your operation also concerns me. Even under the best conditions, complications are common."

"We don't have a shiny government lab, doctor," Dr. G replied testily as he approached Duo with a syringe. "If we are successful here, these injections will most likely save Duo's life, and the lives of many others who will rely on his silence to keep them safe. While I do hope that Duo never falls under the hands of our enemy, it is a possibility that he must be prepared for."

"You're going to go a lot further than genetic altering injections, aren't you?" the doctor guessed, looking pale. "Does he know?" He faced Duo. "Do you know what he's planning for you?"

Duo swallowed hard and nodded. "He said that I have to be tough. He's going to teach me how to take whatever they give."

The doctor rubbed hands over his face and turned away. "I have to stay and monitor him."

"Under full protest, yes," Dr. G snorted. "Duly noted, Doctor."

"This is going to give me nightmares," the doctor whispered.

"Keep your mind on the goal," Dr. G suggested. "We are about to give Duo superior strength, healing ability above what he already has, and a high tolerance to stress, pain, and certain drugs. He'll be far superior to the soldiers he will face."

"And they'll never suspect," the doctor guessed. "They'll treat him like the boy he seems and he'll kill them."

Dr. G nodded, unapologetic. "Doctor, I know that you think I am a monster, tormenting and warping a young boy, but the truth is, that I am far too soft in my methods. We will see, whether my failure, dooms us all."

"Our humanity is why we are striving for our freedom," the doctor replied, "There is nothing worth saving if you are willing to discard it to fulfill your plans."

Dr. G grunted as he swabbed one of Duo's arms. "Tell him, boy," he asked Duo, "Tell him what you think of his idealism."

"What's that?" Duo wondered with a scowl.

"If someone is stealing your bread, and you will die without it," Dr. G explained. "Is it wise to let him take it rather than risk your injury?"

Duo snorted. "That's easy. You kill him, whatever it takes, and get your bread back."

"Even if you have to send others to die to get your bread back?"Dr. G asked.

"Yeah... well, if they get some of the bread too," Duo replied.

"I won't let you over simplify our situation," the doctor snarled at Dr. G. "This is a lot bigger than stolen bread."

"No matter how far along we manage to get in our evolution," Dr. G said as he injected Duo. "It's always about being stronger, defending our territory, mating. People never change in their basic needs, or in fighting over them."

"Mating?" Duo echoed with a wince. "If you perverts are talking about-"

Dr. G sighed. "Never mind, boy. Mating doesn't have anything to do with your usefulness to our cause."

"Good!" Duo snapped back, "because if you think-"

"No one was, I assure you," Dr. G grumbled as he checked Duo's injection site. "Now, I want you to tell me everything that you are feeling."

"Bored," Duo retorted. "How long do I have to sit here?"

"Until I say differently," Dr. G replied as he checked Duo's vitals on a computer screen.

Duo raised an arm, the strap undone. He grinned at Dr.G's startled expression. "Until I get tired of listening to you, you mean."

"How did you..." Dr. G examined the strap and Duo's wiggling hand. It was empty now, but Dr. G was certain that the boy had some sort of device on him. "You demagnetized the locking device," Dr. G surmised.

"You're a genius!" Duo mocked.

Dr. G frowned as he locked Duo down again. "I suggest that you stay restrained. Some of the injections might give you uncontrolled muscle spasms."

"Nice," Duo sneered.

They waited. Duo fidgeted as much as he was able, eyes flicking everywhere, unable to stay still for even a moment.

"What are you thinking about?" the doctor wanted to know.

"Lunch," Duo replied, "Whether I can pilot again. Calculation for thruster rotation to L4 from the Deneb cluster, the itch on the end of my nose that I can't freakin' scratch, That conduit infraction with panel 456, that keeps shutting off life support in storage bay six, who the heck the bad guys were after when they went after our asses, and why my skin feels like bugs are crawling all over me!" His voice rose on the last and he couldn't help looking anxious.

"Liver?" the doctor suggested.

"Modified to handle toxins," Dr. G informed him. "The faster his system processes, the faster he'll over come any drugs given to him."

"Won't that make me shit faster too?" Duo asked worriedly.

Dr. G grimaced. "Not that fast."

"Oh." Duo looked relieved, but then he squirmed. "I feel hot and my insides are hurting."

"Normal. Don't worry about it," Dr. G reassured him.

"It's really hurting," Duo complained, wincing now and panting a little.

"Want it to stop?" Dr. G asked, bending close.

Duo shivered all over, face going pale, and he whimpered, "Yes."

The doctor pulled on what little hair he had and hunched over, looking ill. "I hate this!" he shouted.

"So do I," Dr. G replied, and then to Duo. "If you want the pain to stop, you must learn to control your body. Listen carefully..."

"Are you all right?" The doctor asked as he sat on the side of Duo's bed.

"Yeah, great," Duo replied, his voice shaky, though.

"You can chose to stop this at any time," the doctor urged him. "Why go through it?"

"Why not?" Duo shot back. "You don't know nothin', do you?" He curled up on his side, back away from the doctor. "He's giving me a chance to make a difference. If I can't make it, what am I? Street trash. Nobody. Just someone they can do anything they want to... I'm tired of that. I don't want that any more. What's a little pain when I'll be able to get them back?"

"He'll get another pilot," the doctor assured him. "You don't have to be the one to do this."

"You don't listen!" Duo snarled at him. "Nobody else should have to! Why let anyone else screw up their life? I'm nobody. I've got nothing and no one to cry about me if things don't go right. It should be me."

The doctor touched his shoulder. Duo tensed under the touch. "Have you lived your entire life unloved, uncared for?"

Duo's voice was tight, as if he were struggling to control it. "No, but they're dead, now, just like everyone else. I figure, I should be dead too... but I'm not. I don't know why that is. It doesn't make any freakin' sense. They were so much better'n me. Somebody should get the people who killed them. That's my job now. If I die doing it, well, that's just what should have happened a long time ago."

"You're displaying at least a dozen psychological disorders," the doctor complained, "and Dr. G is taking complete advantage of every one of them."

"He needs me," Duo grumbled, "And I need him. That's the way it works."

The doctor tried to rub a comforting hand over Duo's arm, but he jerked away. The doctor flushed. "I'm only worried about you."

"Yeah?" Duo complained, "well, don't. I don't need anybody blubbering over me."

"Duo?" the doctor folded his hands in his lap and searched for the right words. "The people you are trying to kill, have families, children... they think they are only doing their duty. They are not all like the men who hurt you. Some of them are even fighting because they have had tragedy as well."

Duo snickered and it was full of pain. "If someone fights on the side of people who want to kill you, then they have to think that's okay. Nobody stopped what happened. Nobody paid for it afterward. It was an accident, they said. Funny thing is, though, they keep on having the same kind of 'accidents'. Problem with you is, you want to think everybody's nice and just doing what they have to. Ever watch anybody bleed to death? It's not like those stupid vid movies the sweepers got. It's thick, and red, and it comes out like nothin' you've ever seen before. It changes your life when you see it come out of somebody you care about."

"I am a doctor," he reminded the boy, but couldn't help a shiver.

"That's different," Duo told him.

The doctor decided not to argue the point. "Duo, I'm not asking you to love them, but I do want you to understand that killing, wholesale, won't make anything better, or bring back what's lost. It just makes more empty lives, more hurt and pain."

"At some point," Duo replied, "You have to stop them from doing what they're doing. They don't have to die. They can just go away. The ones that won't, will have me to face. I won't feel sorry for them, either, so you can shut up about that."

The doctor sighed and almost stood, but Duo reached behind him and gripped his arm tightly.

"What is it?" the doctor asked, settling down again.

Duo didn't say anything, just curled up again, hands fisted in his pillow. The doctor reached out tentatively and gently rubbed up and down Duo's arm again. They didn't say anything after that, but it was a long while before Duo fell asleep.

"Get Scythe!" Dr G shouted at Duo.

Trusting the boy, he scrambled for his own shuttle as the entire sweepers force attempted to escape the attacking enemy. Somehow, they had been found out. Dr. G didn't rule out a traitor. It was too coincidental that the outside detectors had failed on the north quadrant, the one in which the attack had come down on them.

"He's never piloted the Gundam in space!" a technician protested as they broke free of the fighting and went on full thrusters for an array of asteroids.

"He's aced every simulator," another shot back. "And he doesn't have G forces to contend with."

"A Gundam isn't a goddam shuttle!" the first man argued. "It handles completely different!"

"There is no one else who can pilot," Dr. G snarled at them as he watched his monitor, waiting for the Gundam to emerge. "Not after we modified the cockpit for his size."

"Once he shows himself, we can kiss our secret project goodbye," the second technician grumbled.

"No," Dr. G replied in a tone that was as cold as space. He opened a channel to Deathscythe. "Boy? These are your first orders. Kill all of them. No one who sees you must live to tell about it."

"Mission accepted," came Duo's prompt answer. "Launching."

The bay doors opened and the enemy turned from pursuit of the fleeing targets to dealing with an emerging unknown. Deathsycthe sprang from the opening like it's namesake. It was death, dark grace, glowing 'eyes', and a power nothing could match. The scythe powered up. It flared, swung wide and awkwardly, and then found a target as the pilot compensated with his incredible skill. An enemy ship shattered and blew as it was cut it in half. Debris and bodies filled vacuum. The head of Deathscythe was surrounded by them as it swung at another ship with the same results.

Death, surrounded by death, and dealing death. It was darkly poetic, even though the horror of it was chilling to the soul. Duo took out all of his targets, not hesitating, and not showing any mercy when one of them tried to flee.

"Back to the bay," Dr. G ordered. "We need to regroup and find another location."

Deathscythe retreated into the bay, the ships redocked, and Dr. G hurried to see his protege'. Deathscythe's cockpit was open and it was powering down. The gundanium was ice cold, and Dr. G was careful to avoid it as he took the line up and faced Duo.

"Boy?"

Duo looked up. He was pale as he stripped off his gloves and hit a few buttons. He grinned and asked, "How'd I do?"

Dr. G tried to gage his mood and failed. The boy was too good at this game. "You were sloppy with the scythe."

"You balanced it like shit," Duo complained. "I did my best with it."

"It's perfect," Dr. G shot back. "This Gundam is the best machine ever built."

"It's crap," Duo grumbled and then he was looking down, his bangs hiding his eyes, as he slumped in his chair.

"You're not going to cry, are you?" Dr. G wondered.

"Boys don't cry," Duo said in a forced, cheerful tone.

"What do they do, then?" Dr. G wanted to know, ill equipped to deal with the emotions of a child.

"They run and hide," Duo snickered back and then looked up as he squared his shoulders. He was serious, suddenly. "What I did was right." It wasn't a question.

It wasn't time for semantics. It wasn't time to hand the boy doubt. They needed him too badly. "They attacked us," Dr. G told him. "They weren't giving any quarter. They would have killed all of us."

Duo nodded, firmed, and then flipped the straps off, the buckles slapping padded leather. He climbed out of the seat, looking very small and young. He moved to the second lift and said, without looking at Dr. G., "I saw some of their faces. They looked... scared. You're right, though. They would have killed us."

Dr. G nodded and watched Duo take the trip down. Near the end , he used the low gravity to let go of the line, do a flip, and land on the bay floor. Men and women cheered him, slapped him on the back, and gathered around to tell him that he was a hero. Dr. G saw him smile at them, but it was a wary smile. Good, Dr. G thought, don't let it go to your head, boy, because it doesn't last.

TBC 


	4. Set them Free

Chapter Five:Set Them Free by Kracken 

Standing about Duo, in the exercise room, they stared at him, doubting. Even when they read all of the data, they still saw nothing but a boy; L2 street trash.

Duo was cocky, eyeing them as much as they studied him. He stood straight, shoulders back, hands on hips, and his black on black clothing doing nothing to make him look larger. When one colonist dared to finger his long braid, he almost lost his life to the sharp blade of the knife Duo flicked out.

"He's a killer," that man snarled as he backed up fearfully.

"Who else to pilot a killing machine?" Dr. G replied acidly. "Or did you think blood wouldn't be shed?"

"Who's blood, though?" another colonist countered. "He doesn't inspire confidence that he'll follow your orders."

"As long as they square with what I want, I'll follow your plan," Duo told him. "I intend to kill as many of the enemy as possible. Is that what you want?"

"We want them off our colonies," the man replied. "We want to teach them, once and for all, that we are autonomous and no longer subject to Earth."

"If that causes deaths," yet another interjected. "It is on their heads."

"You intend to put this... boy... into the cockpit of the most powerful machine on Earth and in space," the first man said. "I want to know, for certain, that we have a way of preventing any defection."

Dr. G frowned. "A remote self destruct?"

"Yes." The man walked around Duo. "Hear that, boy? Make a move to do things your way and we'll blow you up into powder. Understand?"

Duo shrugged and rolled his eyes as he sheathed his knife back into its hidden place up one sleeve. "Whatever you want, like I said, as long as I get what I want."

One man had kept quiet. He was very old, dressed as an official, and looking worn to the bone. "What of the others?" he asked.

"Unknown," Dr. G replied, "They may have succeeded, or they may have abandoned the plan to pursue more conventional methods of terrorism. Communication between the satellites has been monitored too well to chance contact."

"I still don't like it," A younger colonist growled. "You say only this boy is capable of handling the stresses of a Gundam, but you've only had one test subject."

Dr. G turned to glare at the man. "My subject was a twenty five year old man. The g forces of the Gundam caused massive hemorrhaging and bone fractures. The bones and muscles of a young boy are far more forgiving."

The official looked uneasy. "That seems too simplistic a reply, Dr. We are not that ignorant. Are you saying that you've genetically modified this child?"

"I've done what needed doing, with his full agreement," Dr. G replied. "Sacrifice is necessary to win any war."

"This isn't a war," one man protested.

"Call it any pretty name you choose," Dr. G sniffed. "When you kill to achieve your goals, you are making war."

The official came very close to Duo and bent to look him in the eyes. "I see death in your eyes."

Duo grinned without amusement, fierce and defiant."I am Shinigami."

The man blinked puzzled. "The God of Death?"

"The young can be... conceited," Dr. G said, brushing it off as the man straightened and looked to him for an explanation.

The man grunted and motioned to his comrades. "We will discuss this and give you our orders afterward. "

"I'll be waiting," Dr. G replied with a tinge of sarcasm.

He and Duo watched them go and then Dr. G turned to Duo and snapped, "Exercises, starting with ten minutes on the bar... Shinigami."

Duo looked annoyed. "Who else am I, then? I get the most powerful killing machine in the universe and I get to kill with it."

Dr. G watched him go to the bar, leap up, and catch it with his fingertips. He held them there and hung. His muscle endurance was phenomenal and it wasn't only due to the genetic tinkering that Dr. G had practiced on him. He could almost believe in fate when he looked at Duo. How else to explain how the perfect pilot had literally walked into his life?

"They're your kids?" Duo asked uncertainly.

The five children, three boys, and two girls, were smiling and looking at Duo encouragingly. Their mother looked more nervous, finishing off the touches on a table prepared for their dinner, a dinner that the physician had invited Duo to attend.

"Yes," the doctor replied as he motioned down the line of them, "Polly, Theresa, Randall, Kevin, and Tyler. Tyler is closest to your age, Duo."

"Hey," Duo greeted them nervously.

"Hi," they all chorused back.

Duo found a grin as they all sat down. Duo eyed the food with interest. "A lot better than the rations they serve in the mess."

"My wife, Helen, is an excellent cook," the doctor replied.

The doctor noted that Duo was smiling, but the hard, wary, glint in his eyes wasn't gone. He didn't trust anyone and he certainly didn't trust this strange turn of events.

"I thought that you might benefit from spending some time in a more 'normal' setting," the doctor said, deciding to be truthful.

Duo shrugged and asked, "This is normal?"

He really didn't know, of course, and it drove home to the doctor that he was dealing with someone without a reference for peace and security. Duo had never had either.

"Yes," the doctor replied. "This is how most colonists live."

Duo's eyes clouded with memory as food was put onto his plate. "Even in the orphanage, we lined up and had food slopped onto plates. It's kind of nice to sit around a table and not worry about someone stealing your food."

"Eat as much as you like," the doctor urged.

"I don't have to be told that twice," Duo snickered and hunched over his plate to eat.

After the meal, it was hard to entice Duo to play with the other children. He seemed confused by their immaturity and didn't understand their easy acceptance of him.

"I've got a collection of Earth rocks," Polly told Duo. "Do you want to see it?"

"Who'd want to look at rocks?" Duo wanted to know with a snort.

"I have a hamster," Tyler piped in.

"Hamster?" Duo looked to the doctor for direction, but he only smiled back and made a motion to follow Tyler into his room.

"It's fuzzy!" Duo exclaimed after a minute and then laughed with real humor. "His little feet are tickling my skin!"

A turning point it wasn't, but, later, over the course of many visits, Duo slowly learned that there was a part of life that he had missed; his childhood. That realization was a bitter one, tipped with anger, but the doctor's children soothed that loss and they showed Duo that it was possible, even for a Gundam pilot in training, to recapture some of it.

"You've taught my little killer to act like a child," Dr. G said as he watched the children play chase among the corridors. "Excellent. He'll be able to blend better when he reaches Earth."

"He isn't acting," the doctor assured him.

Dr. G snickered."He plays, and he enjoys it, but it doesn't change who, and what, he is."

The doctor watched Duo, so much stronger, faster, and far more intelligent than his own children, and saw Duo's control, his careful mimicking of their attitudes and actions.He was enjoying himself, but Dr. G was correct. Duo was only acting. He was an adult playing at being a child.

"It wasn't a waste of time," the doctor insisted.

Dr. G raised an eyebrow. "Did I say it was? Sanity is often measured by our humanity, or lack thereof. I think you've managed to give the boy more humanity."

"I'll pray that I have," the doctor replied, "because it might be all that comes between us and our deaths at his hands."

Duo didn't like to be alone. Alone wasn't safe. Numbers kept the predators from eating you out of hand. Being told to go solo, to steal Deathscythe and to foil a monstrous plot to kill innocents, was reason enough, though. Maybe he wouldn't last long. Maybe his life was now measured in his own skill, but he would use that time to get what he had always wanted; revenge, yet on the right people. Earth had never done him wrong, he thought, even though some of the soldiers he wanted dead were residing there.

There were no tender words. No tears. The man who had become his life, had not been a father figure. Dr. G had set the bar and Duo had striven for years to reach it. Now that it was firmly in his grasp, he could only feel relief in leaving at last, the man who had, basically, honed him, in pain and blood, to be his weapon. There was more regret for the doctor and his family, the cook, and the sweepers that had given him rough affection.Not being able to say goodbye was painful, because he was that sure that he wouldn't see them on this side of life again.

Duo had trained to withstand Earth gravity, but re-entry was brutal. Dropping like a star into g forces that threatened to crush him, he almost blacked out. He managed, though, to bring his shuttle down on a remote landing strip, covered in weeds, according to plan and on trained reflexes alone. He forced his body, screaming pain from strained muscles and an over taxed heart, to power Deathscythe up and bring it out of the shuttle. He ignored a nose bleed and the feeling that blood vessels in his eyes had been burst, as he checked systems and the sensors for an approaching enemy.

Duo grinned. He had gone unnoticed. Dr. G's cloaking device was working perfectly. Still, he couldn't chance that space satellites had tracked the unusual 'falling star'. He needed to leave the area at once.

"Come on, buddy," Duo said to the machine of destruction under his control. "Let's figure out how to move in high gravity."

It wasn't easy. Duo had to shorten his motions and learn that his actions wouldn't cause the several tons of metal under him to gyrate out of control. Gravity kept him anchored. 'Real' oxygen also caused the scythe beam to vibrate. Duo had to allow for that as he swept it experimentally back and forth as his gundam walked away from the landing site.

Something 'popped'. It was the only way to describe the sensation. Malfunction lights lit up one section of the controls. Duo stopped the gundam under a stand of ancient trees, and climbed out along the arm to check it's status. What he found had him cursing. "Piece of junk! He told me this was the best machine in the solar system!"

It took long hours of repair. The arm wasn't the only thing to malfunction under Earth's gravity. When the coded message scrolled across his cockpit screen, Duo scowled. The enemy was gathering in the sea for some purpose. He was ordered to check it out. He quickly typed a response, but it looped and came back to him. Two way conversation was terminated for security reasons.

A traitor thought, wormed it's way into Duo's mind. He had the strong urge to go completely solo. His 'mission' was one he hadn't been able to accept. Dr. G's mission was more subtle, but still required controlled destruction of the enemy. It would take time, even some infiltration. Duo was young enough to think that a six month timetable was equal to forever. Now that he was ordered to recon as well, his mind tacked on forever and ever, onto his timetable.

Duo swung the scythe and felt his repairs hold as it took off half a tree beside him.

The screen scrolled again and Duo wondered if Dr. G had a way of reading his mind even that far away. 'If you attack outside the plan, they will swarm you and destroy you before you can exact your revenge.'

Duo thought about that, picturing a frontal attack geared to cause the maximum of destruction. He imagined the military response. His gundam was almost indestructible, but not against overwhelming numbers. They would 'take him down'.

Duo punched the console angrily. "All right, Pestilence, the God of Death follows your orders... for now."

TBC


	5. Settling In

**Chapter Six: Settling In **

**He felt powerful, truly like the God of Death. Nothing, it seemed, could stand against him when he was in Deathscythe's cockpit. Finding another suit, at the bottom of the sea, and making chum out of enemy Cancers to secure it, had left him ready to take on all of Earth. Soon, he thought, they'll be begging his mercy, and he'll be the one not granting it.**

It was there, the edge, the darkness howling beneath it and ready to claim him, that gave Duo pause as he waited at the docks for nightfall and a chance to bring up both suits. It was far too easy to remember abandonment on the streets, the orphanage, the string of families who hadn't been able to accept a boy who had already grown to adulthood, without his body's maturity. He remembered Sister Helen's death, the unfeeling machine of the military that had crushed civilian and enemy alike. It was all the fault of the enemy, the unnatural thing that his young life had become. It was right that he pay them back, he thought, right to use both suits to totally destroy them, whatever the cost.

Duo heard voices. He tensed and drew his gun. Death to anyone who saw him. That was one of the last orders Dr. G had given him. It would be a pleasure, Duo thought grimly. Who else would be on a military barge, but military? He checked his timer. The suits would be floating up soon, but he still had time enough to make a quick kill and to check for other soldiers.

Duo rounded a corner and stopped in his tracks. A girl, in a party dress, was standing there. Quickly, Duo drew a flare and lit it, almost blinding them both. He shouted a warning and told her to leave, but there was someone else beyond her, someone Duo could just make out drawing a gun.

It didn't matter, a part of him thought. So, the stranger was going to shoot the girl. He should have shot her as well, if she hadn't flustered him so much. A person couldn't be expected to plan for girls in party dresses to show up in military installations, though.

That thought hit Duo hard, as if he were sucker punched, and he suddenly saw things with an entirely different perspective. War was war, and soldiers had to die, but he wasn't about to become what he was fighting against. He wouldn't kill civilians to get what he wanted.

"Don't do it!" he shouted and fired first. The girl flinched and the person beyond her went down. That moment changed his life.

"Hey, Heero," Duo said as he approached the man arranging his new desk. "Glad you could join preventers with the rest of us."

Heero looked up at him, face grim as he nodded. "It seemed a cause worth supporting."

"You were all about causes, during the war," Duo grunted as he noted the lack of anything personal in Heero's things.

"You weren't?" Heero retorted, but it was without heat, a simple reminder of how things had been.

Duo shrugged and looked his new partner over. Killer, his mind told him, cold, ruthless killer working for the law now.

"Your not still sore about getting shot by me?" Duo wondered. "That's going to suck, if you are, considering that we have to work together."

Heero paused in the arranging of his desk, stared at nothing very hard, and then continued as he said,"I'm not angry about that. It... It changed my life."

Duo raised eyebrows. "How?"

Heero seemed a little embarrassed to reveal something of himself, but he was feeling obligation more strongly. "I was ready to kill anyone then. I was going to kill Relena Peacecraft. When you stopped me, I realized that I had never really wanted to kill her. The desire wasn't in me. I wasn't the weapon that they had trained me to be, living only to follow orders. I decided, afterward, to fight the war in my own way."

Duo felt a shock at that revelation. His mouth worked for a moment and then he admitted, "So did I... I didn't want to kill civilians... only the enemy."

If they had harbored preconceived notions about each other, those notions were gone. Heero wasn't the stone cold killer. Duo wasn't the avenging God of Death without a conscience.

Duo stuck hands in his uniform pants pockets and felt a blush, his mind free, now, to notice just how handsome Heero had become. "Uh, how about going down to the commissary and grabbing some breakfast, before we start on our first assignment?"

Heero gave Duo a small smile. "I would like that."

Heero stood and Duo boldly draped an arm over his shoulder as he said cheerfully, "I'll show you around afterward and tell you what to expect around here."

Heero stiffened at the touch, but then relaxed and allowed it. "All right."

As Duo led him into an elevator he said, with a grin, "I'm taller, now."

"I'm stronger," Heero retorted.

Duo squeezed with his arm. "I can feel that."

"We've both changed," Heero agreed.

"That's what growing up is all about," Duo chuckled.

END

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